210 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Captain Hutton, in tlie communication referred to,* suggested that the 

 districts in which the hird was all but exterminated were only those thicldy 

 inhabited by Maoris, to which the obvious reply was that the extensive 

 wooded district lying between Whangarei and the North Cape is not 

 inhabited by Maoris at all. Dr. Hector, who made a geological survey of 

 that district in 1868, did not meet with a single korimako, whereas formerly 

 these birds existed there by thousands. My remarks on the present 

 scarcity of the species were intended to refer principally to the North. 

 Island, but even in the South, as I have abeady pointed out (" Trans. 

 N.Z, lust.," vol. IX., p. 330), it is far less plentiful than it formerly was. 

 Doubtless it is only a question of a few years, and the sweet notes of this 

 native songster will cease to be heard in the grove, and naturalists, when 

 compelled to admit the fact, will be left to speculate and argue as to the 

 causes of its extinction. 



My observations as to the extreme rarity of this species in the North 

 Island, where in former years it was the commonest of the perchers, are 

 confirmed by Captain Mair, who informs me that during the last eight 

 years he has never met with it at all, except on the Island of Mokoia (a 

 place of some historic hiterest in the Eotorua Lake, about 600 acres 

 in extent), and in a tract of manuka bush covering about a thousand 

 acres of land at the foot of Mount Edgecumbe. In both of these localities 

 it is still very plentiful. 



In 1868, Captain Hutton found the korimako abundant on Great Barrier 

 Island, although even then scarce on the main-land ;f and in 1871 Major 

 Mair met with it on the Eurima Rocks and on Whale Island, in the Bay of 

 Plenty, places about five miles apart. He records the delight with which 

 he again listened to its sweet note, and adds, " the Maoris think that it is 

 4ie sole survivor of the race, and that it flies backwards and forwards 

 between these islands." X 



Although I have travelled a good deal through the forests of ihe interior 

 since my return from Europe in 1874, I have positively never met with a 

 single example of this bird on the main-land ; but during a storm-bound visit 

 to the island of Kapiti, in April last, I was charmed immediately on landing 

 to hear the musical notes of the bell-bird again, and to meet with it in every 

 direction among the stunted karaka groves that clothe the western slo]pcs of 

 the island. In the course of an afternoon I saw a score or more of them 

 within a very limited area, and on a second and more extended visit on the 

 following day I found them equally numerous. I met with another bird 



* See " Ibis," January, 1874. f " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," I,, p. 161. 

 + " Trans. N.Z. Inst." V., p. 152. 



